


The Chia Pet

by icepixie



Category: Farscape
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-01
Updated: 2000-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icepixie/pseuds/icepixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It involves Chiana.  Coupled with the title, I think you can take it from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chia Pet

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Chiana woke up slowly, wondering why the pleasant dream she had been having suddenly included an irritatingly cold, liquid substance on her upper body. She realized with a start (or maybe that was just the drop of fluid hitting her eyes as they fluttered open), that something was leaking onto her bed, and, by association, her.

When she felt that the upper part of her clothing was soaked through, as were the bedsheets surrounding her head and shoulders, she realized that this leakage had been going on for a while.

When she had the misfortune to catch a small amount of the leakage in her mouth, she realized that, whatever it was, it was most definitely _not_ water.

"PILOT!"

Chiana rolled out of the bed as she yelled for Pilot, spitting the liquid onto the floor in the process. That wasn't a smart move, for as she jumped away from the bed, she slipped in the stuff, landing hard on her backside in the darkness.

"Pilot! What is this frabnax?!"

Pilot finally, _finally_ answered her through her comm badge just as she started to stand up. "Chiana? What is the matter?"

Chiana growled. It would have been more ferocious, but there was too much of an element of pain in it for it to sound more than merely aggravated. "There is...something...leaking onto my bed. Onto _me_. What is it, and why is it leaking?" There, that sounded controlled. She hoped.

As Pilot presumably checked his readouts of Moya's internal systems, Chiana palmed the touchpad for illumination, and the lights came on. She couldn't see for a moment, and stood by the door, blinking and trying to adjust her eyes to the light as Pilot's voice came through the comm system again.

"There's been a burst in one of the pipes carrying...well, it's a non-toxic waste product, at least, caused by Moya's pregnancy. The DRDs should be able to repair it in..."

Chiana had stopped listening. There was a more pressing concern on her mind. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she looked down at her hands and arms. To her surprise, they were, instead of their normal grey, green.

Green because things were growing on them.

Pilot's reassurances were abruptly interrupted by a long, ear-shattering shriek of utter and complete horror.

* * * * *

Zhaan, whose quarters were closest to Chiana's, was the only other person on Moya to hear the scream (besides Pilot, of course). Consequently, she arrived there before the others (who only knew about the scream because Pilot notified them).

Even Zhaan, who had seen a lot in her eight hundred years of existence, was surprised by what had happened to Chiana. As far as she knew, Nebari were not supposed to have green plant life growing out of their arms, hands, upper torso, and scalp under normal conditions. So she simply stared at Chiana, who was likewise locked into staring at her arms as her entire body began to shake with astonishment and some amount of fear.

After a few moments of this, the others began to arrive. Aeryn, who was again dressed in a T-shirt and John's Calvins, burst into the room, small pulse gun held out in front of her. Ready to defend against intruders, insanity, or perhaps a bit of both, she looked a bit disappointed to find that her foe was a only bit of foliage growing on their newest crewmember.

John arrived right behind Aeryn, so closely that Zhaan entertained a second of speculation as to what might be going on between them before dragging her mind back to the situation at hand. He looked more disheveled--and quite a bit more sleepy--than Aeryn, and for once didn't immediately start talking.

D'Argo was next, and since he had been on the command deck when Pilot notified them that something was wrong in Chiana's quarters, he was the most alert of all of them (except for Aeryn, of course). His hand had been on the hilt of his Qualta Blade, but he relaxed his grip when he saw what the problem was. Zhaan wasn't certain, but she thought she could see a hint of a smile forming on his lips.

Last and most certainly least, Rygel sleepily piloted his thronesled into the doorway, grumbling all the while about being woken from a sound sleep and dreams of his wives.

John was the first to break the silence. Naturally, he chose to break it with, "Hey, we have our very own living chia pet!"

The comment earned him a glare from every member of the room, but it also had the effect of shocking Zhaan and the others into movement. Well, Chiana's mouth at least moved; as Zhaan began to drag her to the medbay, the others trailing, she spat at John, "What's a chia pet?"

John realized that the concept of spreading organic goop on a terra cotta statue and watching it grow probably wouldn't go over too well with this group. "Uh...it's a human thing."

Chiana--he would forever think of her as Chia now--glared at him. "What _kind_ of human thing?"

John wondered if he could discreetly leave the entourage right about now. "Um, it's this stone thing..."

* * * * *

As expected, John's explanation was met with more glares. The rest of the trip to the medbay was made in pained silence, and John seriously wished he had never mentioned chia pets, especially since he now had the commercial's theme song rolling through his head, and that was a fate he would never wish on Crais, much less himself.

When the arrived in the medbay (minus Rygel, who had taken one look at Chiana, decided he was in the throes of a nightmare, and gone back to bed), the holographic representation of Pilot's face was waiting for them. He had a somber look on his face, and Chiana immediately asked, "Now do you know what's wrong?"

Pilot, polite as ever, answered, "Moya provided the answer--apparently the waste fluid you...encountered...causes the type of reaction you are experiencing in Nebari with a certain genetic marker which you seem to have. It's not fatal--" Pilot paused while sighs of relief, however small, were emitted from the others, "and Moya has told me that it should only last for a week."

"What happens in a week?" Chiana asked, envisioning even worse fates for herself than being made into a living window planter.

"In several arns you should begin to sprout flowers--"

"_Flowers_?! You'd better be joking, Pilot," Chiana broke in, not at all amused.

"Of course not, Chiana." Pilot looked annoyed that such a thing could even be thought of him during this situation. "As I was saying, a few days after you sprout the flowers, the growth should begin to die off, and will fall off by itself."

Chiana didn't want to wait a week. Experimentally, she took one of the fine green strands growing from her forearm between her index finger and thumb and started to pull.

"Chiana, don't do that!" Pilot cautioned.

"Why not?" Chiana was getting more irritable as each minute passed.

Zhaan, who had been looking over the information Pilot had sent to the medbay's computer console, replied, "The plants are wired into your nervous system. Not only will you feel intense pain if you pull them out, but your nervous system will be damaged beyond what I could do to repair it."

John, and even Aeryn and D'Argo, who had most likely seen much worse, grimaced at the images that provoked.

Chiana looked ready to cry. "You mean I'm going to have to live with this for a week?!"

"Yes."

When he saw Chiana's ensuing storm cloud-black expression, John had a feeling he didn't want to be there when the Nebari threw a hissy fit. By the way they were slowly edging toward the door, he gathered that D'Argo and Aeryn had had the same idea, and were smart enough to start getting out as early as possible. John decided that that was probably the best course of action.

However, he couldn't leave before getting out one final, parting shot (all in good fun, of course): "Hey, Pilot. Do we have to water her?"

As he ran out of the bay, John could swear he felt the dagger tips from the look Chiana gave him.

* * * * *

The ensuing week was, not to put too fine a point on it, hell for everyone on Moya. If Chiana wasn't whining...well, Chiana was always whining. She didn't shut up. It became worse when pretty little blue and yellow flowers popped up on her arms, face and the top of her head. While they gave her a nice Nature Girl aura, she much preferred her normal, grey skin.

Arguably, the week was even more horrible for John. Whenever he saw Chiana, even for a moment, the chia pet song started running through his head again, and it took hours to get out. He had once sung the five syllables of it to Aeryn, and she had suggested in no uncertain terms that he never do so again.

Finally, the plant life decorating their very own chia pet started to die off. Even Moya heaved a sigh of relief when the last crinkly brown shoot fell off of Chiana's arm.

However, the death of the foliage growing from Chiana caused one more problem. There were dead remnants of the grassy shoots _all_ over Moya. Wherever Chiana had been in the past two days, there were at least thirty pieces of the stuff. The DRDs managed to clean most of it up, but for weeks, everyone on the ship kept finding prickly brown shoots in their clothing, on the floors, in their seats...it seemed that one problem only led to another.

Eventually, though, everything had been cleaned up, and life was back to normal (and for these people, we all know what that means). Except for one thing. John had managed to inadvertently teach the chia pet theme to everyone on Moya. From that point on, they were all to have the dreaded experience of the song being stuck in their heads at least once in their lives. And, as everyone knows, one instance of having that song stuck in your head is _more_ than enough!


End file.
